A Lonely Resurrection

it to work outward in concentric circles. That was dumb. I should have mailed it from somewhere out of the way.”
    “You can’t be too careful,” I said, looking at him.
    He sighed. “I’m going to have to move again. Can’t have them knowing where I live.”
    “Don’t forget, they also know where you work.”
    “I don’t care about that. A lot of what I do now, I do remotely. On the days where I have to go to and from the office, I’ll run an extra-careful SDR.”
    “You haven’t been doing that already?”
    “Sorry. Not as much as I should be. But believe me, I’m careful when I go to see you.”
    This was an unavoidable problem. Inside computer networks, Harry was pure stealth. But in the real world, he was mostly a civilian. A weak spot in my armor.
    I shrugged. “If you weren’t, those guys would have gotten to me by now. Maybe at Teize, maybe another time. Your moves shook them off.”
    He brightened a little, then said, “You don’t think I’m in any danger, do you?”
    I thought about it. I hadn’t mentioned that Kanezaki’s partner hadn’t survived our meeting. I told him now.
    “Shit,” he said. “That’s what I’m talking about. What if they want payback?”
    “I don’t think they’d look to extract it from you. If this were a yakuza thing, it might be a different story—they might come after my friends just to hurt me. But here, if they’ve got a beef, it’s with me. You’re no threat to them. Besides, they don’t have much in-house muscle. Congress wouldn’t like it. That’s why they need people like me.”
    “What about the police? A taxi picked me up at the same spot where someone is going to find a body.”
    “Kanezaki will make a few calls and that body will be gone before anyone stumbles across it. And even if the cops were to get involved, what do they have? Even if they found a way to contact the cab driver, all he’s got is a fake name and an average looking guy he barely saw in the dark, right?”
    “I guess that’s true.”
    “But you still have to be cautious,” I said. “This girl you’re involved with, Yukiko, you trust her?”
    He looked at me. After a moment, he nodded.
    “Because, if you’re spending the night with this girl, she knows where you live. That’s a weakness in your defenses right there.”
    “Yeah, but she’s not involved with these people. . .”
    “You never know, Harry. You never really know.”
    There was a long pause. Then he said, “I can’t live that way. The way you do.”
    A thought flashed in my mind:
Maybe you should have figured that out before you got involved in my world.
    But that wasn’t fair. Or particularly useful.
    The waitress brought two demitasses of the Nire Blend and set them down with exquisite care, as though they were priceless artifacts. She bowed and moved away.
    We drank the coffee. Harry said positive things about his, but there was some obvious effort behind this. It used to be that he would delight in mocking my gustatory recommendations. I couldn’t help noticing the contrast, and I didn’t care for it.
    We made small talk. When the coffee was done, we said goodnight, and I left him to make my circuitous way back to the hotel.
    I wondered if I really believed the Agency posed little danger to Harry. I supposed that mostly I did. Whether they posed a danger to me was another story. They might have wanted me for help, as Kanezaki had said. Or they might have been looking for payback for Holtzer. I had no way to be sure. Regardless, eliminating Kanezaki’s escort earlier wasn’t exactly going to engender endearment.
    And there was Yukiko. She still didn’t feel right to me, and I had no way of knowing whether she was hooked up with the Agency or with someone else.
    Back at the hotel, I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, again unable to sleep.
    So it wasn’t Midori, after all,
I thought.
    The Agency instead of Midori. Talk about a fucking consolation prize.
    Enough. Let it go.
    I was suddenly less certain than I had been the night before that this would be my last in Tokyo. I stared at the ceiling for a long time before descending into sleep.

CHAPTER 6
    T he next morning, I took the bullet train back to Osaka. Arriving early in the afternoon at bustling Shin-Osaka Station, I was surprised to find it felt good to be back. Maybe I’d gotten tired of living in hotels. Or maybe it was something about knowing I was going to have to leave again, this time permanently.
    I knew I’d